


Learning Curve

by Spatz



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Team Bonding, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:24:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatz/pseuds/Spatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six times the team learned something about Steve, and one time they already knew. (set in arsenicjade's The Goat's Back universe)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning Curve

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Goat's Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/578393) by [arsenicarcher (Arsenic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher). 



> This story will make very little sense if you have not read the original story, an alternate universe where Steve was part of a modern-day Serum Enhanced Soldier (SES) project and corporal punishment is standard for special ops units. I also heavily reference her sequel, and make several references to ardentintoxication's prequel, [Ten and Twenty](http://archiveofourown.org/works/594155). Thank you so much for creating this universe, and inspiring me to play in it, too!
> 
> Warnings for (mostly off-screen) whipping and torture, unethical medical experimentation on humans, consensual unprotected sex, and physician-assisted suicide of a minor character (off-screen). Please let me know if I've overlooked anything, since I'm not used to needing to warn for things!
> 
> A million thanks to inmyriadbits for her meticulous beta work on this and her unflagging encouragement. (She is in fact correcting my parallelism in this note as I write it, the dork, but the bonus Coulson is all for you! ♥)

**1) Coulson**

When the latest of the Council's puppets resigns from leading the Avengers, Phil Coulson is standing in Nick Fury's office, watching. Phil _almost_ feels sorry for the man: abandoned by the Council when he failed to control the Avengers and then physically broken by their punishments.

Except the man did it to himself, by selling out his team before he even met them.

Fury approves Gyrich's transfer request with a sardonic smile and insincerely wishes him luck in his next assignment. Once the door closes behind him, Nick slumps, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fantastic. Time for another round of résumé tag with the Council, which will end with the person they want for the job. Again.” 

Technically, the Director of SHIELD supervises the Avengers, but the Council has final approval on just about everything. The worst of it is that the Avengers _need_ a team leader: one they can actually trust. They're all extraordinarily talented fighters, so the missions are usually successful, but he sees the way that they scatter when they should be tight and knows they're forced to watch their backs, not from a lack of trust in each other, but because they're unsure if their leader is about to pull the rug out from under them. Saving the world is hard enough; this is a danger they shouldn't have to carry.

“Sitwell had a thought about that, actually,” Phil says slowly. “He suggested sending in a patsy.”

“We tried that, remember? With whatshisname's nephew.” Nick sighs. “Incompetent moron. Lasted a whole week, and Romanoff nearly killed him.”

“I know, sir,” Phil says. “But then I remembered the other meaning of patsy.”

Nick frowns for a moment, then raises an eyebrow. “Did you have a particular sacrificial lamb in mind, Coulson? Because I'm not sure I like the sound of this.”

“You know I don't believe people are expendable,” Phil says, insulted. He still has the scars to prove it, and if Nick wasn't understandably distracted, he'd punch him. Nick grimaces immediately and waves an apology, so Phil continues. “But we're never going to get one of our people in the spot. We need someone plausible to nominate, someone unconnected to SHIELD in any way. Someone competent, who might occasionally put the team and the mission before avoiding a whipping or pleasing his benefactors.”

“Any suggestions?” Nick drawls.

Phil makes a face. All of the special ops guys he knows are old friends, or have worked with SHIELD. Then Nick grins suddenly. Phil both loves and hates that look. It always means trouble.

“You want plausible: how about a super-soldier to lead a superhero team?” Nick says. “There was an AGD project back in the nineties, the Serum-Enhanced Soldier program.”

“Weren't they all crazy?” Phil ventures. He's heard of the SES program – mostly via dive bar bullshitting about someone's close encounter with one that had gone rogue. He's pretty sure the program didn't have as many participants as he's heard stories, though.

Absently, Nick admits, “Some were. And only five of them ever entered active service.” He refocuses on Phil abruptly. “The project's something of an embarrassment to the Army, so I doubt any are connected with the Council. We've got a few days before they start pressuring me about a replacement: check them out, see if any are suitable.”

“What about the squid sighting in Key West?” Phil asks – his original reason for being in Nick's office – but he already knows the answer.

“Send Sitwell,” Nick says with a wicked smile. “I heard he loves seafood.”

* * *

Phil's job gets a little simpler when three of the five SESes turn out to be dead. One was killed in action, but the other two.... Their files just say 'terminated'. He frowns at the lack of detail, but time is short, so he moves on.

Major Peña is the more appealing of the two remaining soldiers, but not by much: he's got bland fitness reports and a long line of successful but unremarkable missions. Still, better than Captain Rogers: twelve teams in twenty years, never promoted, with a record that swings wildly from triumph to failure. Faced with the choice between exceptional inconsistency and mediocre reliability, Phil thinks the latter is more what they need. He flies out to Peña's base with fake papers and stakes out the man's quarters.

In less than a day, he knows Peña's not their guy. 

It was a bad sign when the rumor mill informed him that Peña only leaves base for Mass and always wears fatigues – which Phil was inclined to disregard, before he broke in to the man's quarters and found nothing but empty walls and identical drawers full of uniforms – but it's the look in his eyes that finally makes Phil turn away. He's not insane, but he's a walking dead man, the kind of obviously-depressed that makes Phil want to order him to a shrink – except Phil's undercover, and not Army anymore, and was never supposed to be here at all.

He puts a flag on Peña's file, and moves on.

Conveniently, Captain Rogers is stationed out of Fort Lawton, so Phil calls in a favor from Colonel Mackenzie and arranges a little test for him.

“An SES, Phil?” Mac asks when Phil explains the situation. “Aren't they all supposed to be unstable? Like, _insane_ unstable?”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “The guy's made it twenty years without an incident; I think he's proved his stability by now, at the very least.” Phil's aware how hypocritical that is – after all, _his_ first reaction was exactly the same – but arguing with Mac is pretty much a reflex at this point. 

And it's true.

Mac holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, Cheese, you're the mastermind.” Phil obligingly grimaces at the old nickname, and Mac waves him out with a smug grin.

Phil has to stay outside so word doesn't get back to the Council that he was sniffing around, but he manages to get a brief glimpse of Captain Rogers on his way into the briefing. Like Peña, he looks like he has barely aged in twenty years, and he's still whipcord muscle under his neat, slightly worn uniform. But there's a sharp edge to his features that wasn't there in his old ID photo: he's almost gaunt in comparison, and looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep.

Phil remembers Peña, and doesn't get his hopes up.

When Mac comes back in barely a third of the time he'd estimated, shaking his head, Phil's heart sinks even lower.

“How'd it go?” Phil makes himself ask.

Mac surprises him with a laugh. “Hell, it barely took him two minutes to spot all three of the flaws you stuck in, and another ten to sort them out. Then he turned right around and said we should use Captain Donnelly's team from over in B Division, because the plan would be safer with two snipers and he only has one. I'll be damned if he wasn't right, too – but his major is spitting mad about losing the mission. If you still want him, you're not gonna get much of a fight.”

Phil thanks Mac distractedly, rolling the new information over in his head. Considering Captain Rogers' track record, the result is more than a little surprising. Phil hadn't even spotted the sniper thing – though he's perhaps spoiled by working with Hawkeye and all of the snipers that Clint has trained for SHIELD. 

Perhaps the very unevenness of his record is what Phil should be checking.

He returns to SHIELD, and requests Captain Rogers' file – the _complete_ one, this time. Research sends up everything they have or can steal, which includes his confidential background check and security clearance, his medical records, and his frequent punishment details. 

Phil starts at the beginning.

Rogers' file shows the kind of childhood that makes most people hard – but not all, Phil knows. Sometimes, you got a Clint Barton or a Natasha Romanoff out of it. He joined up young, though, straight out of a foster care experience where it looked like he'd been passed around even more than he had in the Army, mostly for fighting. That could be a concern if it meant Rogers just wasn't well-socialized, but his team record seems to argue otherwise. His mission success was strongly linked to the teams he was leading at the time, going up and down with every transfer, but was curiously unrelated to the team's previous record as far as Phil could see, which implied that he was doing something right with some of them. Maybe he was just bad at managing difficult personalities.

Oddly, success _was_ related to the frequency of his punishments. Generally speaking, not every failed mission leads to a whipping, but the teams with the worst success records under Rogers are also thick with Administrator reports.

Phil skims down a discipline report from Rogers' third team and his eye catches on the number of strokes – but no, surely that was a typo. It was almost four times the recommended maximum. Phil turns the page, then another. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he realizes that it wasn't a typo. It was a pattern.

He digs a little deeper into the stack of Administrator reports. The majority of Captain Rogers' assignments have been level-four teams, or units with extreme disciplinary histories – even his very first team as a rookie officer was a level-three, which is so cruel that Phil can hardly understand it. It explains the frequency of the punishments, perhaps, but not the extent.

Finally, at the back of the file, he finds a memo from the AGD, dated a year after the end of the program, recommending that corporal punishment for SESes be pushed beyond the normal limits because 'their greater capacity for performance demands a greater responsibility to answer for their errors.'

Buried in the mess of demerits and reprimands, he also finds a lone letter of praise from one Carol Danvers, an Air Force officer with a gift at combining sincere praise for Rogers with a scathing appraisal of his teammates. The note was unofficial, since she wasn't Army, so Phil hadn't seen it in his initial look at the file.

Danvers retired from the military and works at NASA now, so Phil checks the time and calls her personal number. The hour is late, but she answers the phone with a crisp and confident, “Danvers.”

“Colonel Danvers,” he says. “I'm sorry to call you at home so late, but I was hoping you could help me with some information about Captain Steven Rogers. Your letter on file was very interesting.”

There's a long pause, then she says guardedly, “Hell, you'd be the first. I thought that thing got swept under the rug a long time ago.”

“I'm good at finding things,” he says mildly.

She snorts at that, then says, suddenly sounding more relaxed, “So you're a spy, then. What do you want Steve for?”

“He's being considered for a position with my organization.”

“Good,” Danvers says promptly. “He's wasted with the Army. I only ran two missions with his team when I was working military intelligence, but he was way too smart for them – and polite, which was just about a fucking miracle in my experience.”

“So he didn't have a problem working with...an Air Force officer?” Phil says diplomatically. He suspects Danvers will pick up on the euphemism, and she doesn't disappoint.

“Yeah, 'Air Force',” she says dryly. “His men more than made up for it, though. He didn't stand for it when he was around, but you know those spec op types that live at the bottom of the barrel: don't like being told what to do, even if it gets them killed. And--” she hesitates for the first time, and Phil sits up straight.

“Yes?”

“It was just a feeling. But you get a sense for bullshit prejudices when you're... in the Air Force, and there were a lot of rumors floating around about him being an SES, and how he'd been reassigned to the team because he went crazy on his last one. I had access to his file so I knew it was all crap, but a lot of them bought into it. That kind of shit follows a person around, you know? It's why I wrote the letter: hoped someone'd get the story straight. At least, if they bothered to read it at all.” Her voice goes amused. “Well. I guess someone finally did. Anything else I can help you with, Mr...?”

“Coulson. Agent Coulson of SHIELD,” Phil says. “That's all I need, thank you.”

He catches Fury in his office the following day.

“Please tell me you've got someone for me, Coulson,” Fury says. He looks extra exasperated today, in the inimitable way that only bureaucrats can provoke.

“Captain Steven Rogers,” Phil says without preamble, handing over the personnel file and the summary of his own findings. “On paper, he looks like an obedient soldier with an uneven operational record, so I think the Council will go for him, but there's a lot more to the story.” 

Nick raises a skeptical eyebrow, but he trusts Phil with assignments like this for a reason, so he settles in to read. Phil watches patiently as Nick's face shifts from his standard pissed off expression into his _genuinely_ pissed off expression, until Nick growls, “Fuck, what a mess. You're sure this is our guy?”

“Well, for one thing, he's clearly experienced at handling hostility from his teammates,” Phil says, only half-joking. He chooses his next words carefully. “He's been serving for twenty years under those conditions, and still _wants_ to serve. I'm sure.”

Nick levels his gaze at Phil. “You really like this kid, huh.”

“He's not a kid, sir,” Phil corrects. “And we have an opportunity here to give him something worth serving. I think he's earned that, at the very least.”

Two weeks later, shortly after Captain Rogers finishes his first Avengers mission with minimal problems, Phil gets a notice from the research division: a status change flag went up on a personnel file he recently accessed – Major Peña's file. It now reads 'terminated,' and this time, the status is accompanied by a neatly typed death certificate. 

Phil stares at the screen for a long time. Cause of death is listed as 'physician assisted standard termination.' The death certificate is dated one day before a punishment was scheduled for his team blowing a surveillance detail. It would have been one hundred and fifty lashes with a scourge. 

With a sick suspicion, he pulls up the 'terminated' files for the other two SESes. Each one lines up with a canceled punishment in the Administrator database: the same impossibly severe punishments that he'd seen in Captain Rogers' file. He looks over the SES performance summary again, but cannot find any reference to increased pain tolerance, only faster healing. Phil closes his eyes against the realization.

An AGD memo recommending harsher punishments. The rumors about SESes going rogue, when only five subjects actually served. The constant level-four team assignments. The timing of the deaths. It's a pattern Phil can't ignore – someone wants the SESes gone, and is using the disciplinary system to keep their hands clean of it.

And Phil just sent Captain Rogers into the lion's den, to lead a team with the worst disciplinary record he's ever seen, under a supervisory Council that wants power far more than justice.

With a heavy heart, he prays that he didn't just give Steve Rogers his last assignment.

 

**2) Pepper**

Pepper is honestly just trying to borrow some unexpired milk from the team's kitchen when she sees it: Captain Rogers' notebook, lying out on the counter. He has been writing in it every time that she's seen him since his introduction, and she wonders cynically if he's taking notes for the Council. Which is probably unfair, given the subtle way that Fury implied the captain was SHIELD's choice and not the Council's, but Tony's been put in too much danger by the string of morons that they've appointed for her to rely on that.

So it's completely reasonable for her to check if the notebook's owner is still absent and then surreptitiously flip it open. Just in case.

She instantly feels guilty, because it's not notes on anyone. It's not even writing, but a sketchbook with pages and pages of rough pencil drawings in various stages of completion. The most recent are a set showing Natasha sparring with Clint in the gym. There's a frustrated feeling to the half-finished sketches: Clint is cleanly lined and easily recognizable, but Natasha is not quite right in any of them. The best and most detailed is one of her from behind, the curve of her cheek barely visible through her hair. It's very Natasha.

Pepper flips back through the pages: some hand studies of the team with their weapons (Tony in the gauntlet, Clint twirling an arrow through his fingers, Thor tossing his hammer), the view from the Avengers common room, several bird's-eye views of the street from the much lower floor where Captain Rogers is staying, and a few that look like Bryant Park. She can easily identify the page that marks his assignment to the team, because there's a hasty sketch of New York's skyline as seen from a plane window. Before that, a lot of landscapes and random objects, a detailed map of some building labeled in German, and to her great surprise, several intricate studies of a statue that she vaguely recognizes: a woman, half-crumpled under the weight of a stone.

She's trying to remember the name of the sculpture when Captain Rogers' calm voice says from behind her, “Miss Potts?” 

Pepper startles badly and turns with her hand clutching her chest.

“Sorry,” the captain says, looking abashed. “I didn't mean to-- is that my sketchbook?”

Pepper takes a page from Tony's playbook and stifles her instinctive urge to apologize, instead asking, “Yes, I was just trying to remember the name of this sculpture – it's a Rodin, isn't it?”

“ _The Fallen Caryatid Carrying Her Stone_ ,” he says promptly. “I saw it when I was on leave in Paris.”

“Right. Thanks,” Pepper says awkwardly, and belatedly closes the notebook. He slides it out from under her hand gently but firmly, and she feels guilty all over again, because it really was a terrible invasion of privacy. She can blame Tony's bad influence only so far – the rest was all her own curiosity.

“You know,” she says, impulsively, “there's a Rodin exhibit at the MOMA right now, and the Avengers get in free there.”

“Really?” he says, and his expression lights up in a way that entirely changes his face. She hadn't realized how tired he looked until now. He dims it down almost instantly, self-protective, and asks, “Because of that time Rhino tried to rob the place?”

“And Hulk punched him into the East River,” Pepper laughs in agreement, secretly surprised that he's read that closely into their mission reports. She's more disappointed than she expects when his answering smile is measured, cautious – but at least it's there.

Later, when Pepper is telling Natasha about it over drinks, she says, “Unless the whole quiet, well-behaved thing is just a front, he's kind of adorable.”

Natasha smirks at Pepper, a wicked edge to her amusement. “Is he a puppy now?”

Pepper makes a face over the rim of her martini glass. “You know what I mean.”

Natasha shrugs and tosses back a shot of vodka. Pepper reaches out and pours her another one. Tony is really more of a whiskey man, so Pepper is not above using his excellent and neglected vodka stash to tempt the only other woman in the Tower to drink with her on occasion. Natasha's a hard person to know, but Pepper likes the challenge of her company.

The thought reminds her of Captain Rogers' sketch of Natasha, turned away and obscured, and she asks abruptly, “Did you know he drew?”

“I've seen him,” Natasha says, noncommittal.

“He's not bad, actually. Definitely untrained – didn't Tony say he joined up right out of high school?” Natasha nods, and Pepper continues, “But it's strange. His sketch book is at least a few years old, but he doesn't have any people in it – aside from some recent sketches of the team. Like he didn't have anyone he wanted to remember.”

“Maybe we're just prettier than his last unit,” Natasha deadpans and Pepper snorts. 

“Maybe. Or his secret overseers got him to fake it as part of his cover,” she jokes, then, more seriously, “I don't know, Natasha. What Fury said about answering to the Council for him, and the way Captain Rogers didn't seem to even know who they were.... I don't think he's one of them.” Pepper hesitates, and adds, “But I do think he's lonely.”

Natasha tilts her head. “If that's true, he hides it well.”

“He hides everything well. I mean, if I hadn't seen his sketchbook, I'd still be inclined to think he was just a cookie-cutter soldier with bonus super-strength. You're the interrogation expert – have you talked to him yet?”

“No,” Natasha says slowly, “I haven't.”

“Well, hopefully you'll get more than I did,” Pepper sighs, draining her martini.

“You did alright,” Natasha says. She rolls her shot glass between her hands thoughtfully. “'Adorable,' huh?”

Pepper remembers the sudden brightness of Captain Rogers's smile, the careful lines of his art, and says, “Yeah. Adorable.”

 

**3) Tony**

After the first whipping – after Steve slurs that painkillers don't work on SESes, with blood bright on his back and sharp in the air, and then _laughs_ , the most tired laugh Tony's ever heard – Tony hacks into the Army Genetics Division server.

Tony hadn't bothered during the first round of snooping. He'd been more interested in the psych evaluations that praised his sense of duty and patriotism, the twenty years of uneven mission results, and the suspicious lack of records before Steve got a GED and joined the Army at eighteen. All the SES results he'd cared about were neatly lined up in the DOD reports: strength, agility, healing factor, lung capacity, reflexes, endurance. He wasn't a biologist, and Bruce wasn't interested.

Tony hadn't considered how they got their data.

The servers reluctantly cough up a vast chunk of paperwork and video: hardcopy scans and shitty VHS transfers (Tony does not miss the nineties) that Jarvis sorts, oddly silent. Jarvis likes Steve, as does Pepper, and Tony has been trying to ignore them. He feels stupid for doing that now, in a way he rarely does.

Finally, Jarvis finishes compiling and organizing the files. The list pops up – chronological, then by subject – and Tony goes cold. 

The scientists on the project had been very thorough. They started with the basics: weight lifting, sensory exams, marathon treadmill sessions, psych evals. Sleep deprivation, starvation, dehydration. 

Then they'd gotten creative.

Not all of the soldiers were given all the same tests, but everyone got something. Contusions, lacerations, broken bones, concussions, flash-blinding, hearing damage. During a live fire exercise, one of the soldiers took a gut wound that would have gone septic on anyone else; once they figured out the infection resistance, they started on the diseases. Ebola, Tony notes distantly, had been virulent enough to cause serious blood loss before the serum killed it. Thankfully, Steve had not been chosen for that particular experiment. They'd even dabbled in amputation, to test if the SESes could regrow body parts – yes, as it turned out, but very slowly. The toe had only partially grown back when the project ended and the man requested termination.

When he hits the dunking videos, he finally has to stop because he's having trouble breathing - it's not a panic attack, it's _not_.

He goes back to the listing of the soldiers involved in the project and throws their pictures up on the display: forty-two bright young faces, their causes of death listed in blood red type underneath. Five 'accidental' deaths from the testing, thirteen killed by security personnel when they went crazy, one KIA. Twenty-two 'requests for termination.'

And one survivor.

When Natasha appears out of the shadows by the workshop stairs, Tony doesn't even flinch. He knows she's been there since shortly after he started – Jarvis had flagged her entry at the time. "Did you know?" he demands. _Why didn't you tell me?_ , he doesn't say.

"I suspected," she says, too calmly, her lips drawn thin. "The way he acts around medical equipment, or when anyone mentions the AGD. It was...familiar."

Tony knows even less about Natasha's history than Steve's before she joined up with SHIELD – enlisted by the Red Room age 8, trained to be a ninja spy and assassin, targeted for termination by SHIELD age 22, recruited by Clint Barton age 23 – and doesn't think he wants to know more.

Nineteen people killed, twenty-two formal requests for suicide, and one Steve Rogers. He kinda wishes he didn't know that, either.

 

**4) Clint**

Clint's been on a lot of special ops teams before the Avengers. He's familiar with the normal punishment procedures. What they do to Steve qualifies as torture. 

Clint remembers his own experience with caning pretty vividly, nightmares included, but at least he'd gotten to kill the son of a bitch when he escaped. Steve has to say _yes, sir_ and then keep working with the people who stood by and watched him bleed. Some days, Clint wonders why Cap doesn't hate them all.

Most days, though, he remembers Steve after the first whipping, saying _I'll do my best_ and worrying about squeezing Pepper's hand too hard. In Clint's experience, people are their most honest when they're in pain, and that's Steve in a nutshell: worrying about everyone else first, trying to survive on what was left, and never holding a grudge.

But Clint can hold one for him.

He bribes Tony into giving him an hour with Jarvis and comes out with a list of people he kinda wants to kill, but will settle for destroying. Natasha is more than happy to help.

Some are retired, which makes them easy marks. Some are dead, which saves Clint the trouble, though he's more than a little disappointed that Corporal Stewart was killed by an IED four years back, because the asshole's deliberate miscounting turned one hundred lashes into a three hundred count whipping, and put Steve in the infirmary for a week. The records show that Steve didn't even make it to medical until the next day, and was admitted by himself – then got forcibly reassigned and given a black mark for the incident, like it was _his_ fault the guy tried to frag his officer.

What Clint can't understand is why so many of them wanted to drive Steve away. Sure, his track record doesn't look so good on paper and there have always been stories about the SESes, but Clint knew the first time they went into the field that Steve was a hell of a lot more competent than his dossier claims. Steve's got the best situational awareness Clint's ever seen, for one, even if Clint includes himself on the list. He's smart, tactically flexible, and picked up on the team's rhythms after only a couple of missions. While some of that comes down to experience, some can never be taught; Steve must have been damn good even as a rookie. It makes Clint want to kill someone all over again.

Anyway, stealthy revenge for Steve makes a decent hobby in between missions and game night with the team (Clint does _not_ cheat at Battleship, no matter what Natasha claims). It purges some of his murderous inclinations towards the Council, so he's only mildly pissed off when SHIELD calls and tells him he's got to do his yearly marksmanship requalification early.

It's bullshit bureaucracy at its finest, but Clint's just finished getting Stiefel to donate all his ill-gotten gains to charity and is waiting on Natasha to procure more of her favorite paralytic poison so they can go terrify ex-Lieutenant Bronson. Bruce says he's making some paella recipe that he picked up in Latin America for dinner, so Clint can afford to waste an afternoon shooting at targets that don't even move.

But when he gets to the range, Coulson is waiting for him.

Clint eyes Coulson warily. “I thought this was supposed to be my requalification.” He likes Coulson well enough, though they rarely work together in the field, but Coulson is Fury's man through and through. Clint is more than done with Fury's power games with the Council and the human cost that he gets to live with.

“It is,” Coulson says flatly. “At least, as far as anyone else will ever know. The Council needs to stay out of the loop on this one.”

And just like that, Clint's adrenaline shoots through the roof. His fingers twitch reflexively, like releasing a bowstring. It's a tell that Natasha has been trying to train out of him for years. Coulson's eyes flicker down at the movement and he nods acknowledgment, holding Clint's eyes. He couldn't have communicated _Yes, this is a situation_ any clearer if he tried.

Pulling a small digital recorder from his inner pocket, Coulson says, “The room has been cleared for bugs, and this is the only remaining record of the conversation you're about to hear. I'm going to destroy it after you listen. Understood?”

Clint nods, his pulse kicking up another notch, and then he isn't paying attention to Coulson anymore, because on the tape Fury is asking _What can I do for you, Captain?_ , and Steve is saying _I'm requesting termination._

For a long, sick moment, all Clint can think is: _No, we've been good, he can't--_ The team never sat down and talked about it, but after the third whipping, when Steve spent a full day unconscious, barely breathing, with blood loss that would kill a normal human, they all just...started being careful. It makes Clint twitchy in the field: second-guessing shots that are usually pure instinct, curbing his bullshit on comms just in case someone's listening, making the safe play instead of the best one. But it's what you do for team. Clint would die for any of them; that's just how it works.

Except apparently Steve thinks the same way – only worse, because he's laying his life down for what, their damn integrity? Like he thinks that's somehow more important than the team getting to keep him. Like he doesn't know how much they'd needed to find him. Like he doesn't see how irreplaceable he is.

On the tape, Fury says, _I'll consider your request, but only if no better option presents itself_. The recording clicks to an end and Clint grits out, “Fury's fucking joking, right? Because I'm pretty sure he meant to say 'hell, no, that's never happening'.”

“Barton-- Clint. Do you know why SHIELD only uses agents that are solo, partnered, or on taskforces?” Coulson pauses, but Clint doesn't have an answer. Coulson sighs, and starts to loosen his tie. “It's because all three categories are exempt from the Disciplinary Guidelines regarding special ops teams.”

Clint opens his mouth to ask what the fuck relevance this has, but Coulson is unbuttoning his shirt collar and pulling the fabric aside. At the base of his throat, there is a thin, silver-white line that wraps around the side of Coulson's neck, nearly down to his collarbone – and by now, Clint is intimately familiar with what a whipping scar looks like. 

“When I was in the Rangers, my team leader was captured and the rest of my unit was killed in an ambush. I got him out, but the mission was a failure and since I was acting leader when we got back, they whipped me for it,” Coulson says. “Colonel Fury survived and got a medical discharge for being blinded in his left eye. I don't regret a damn thing.”

Clint jerks his eyes away from the scar and stares at Coulson in shock. There have been rumors about Fury's eye as long as there's been a SHIELD, and this has the ring of truth.

“The rules are broken, Clint, and the Council is using them to destroy your team because they're scared of the power that the Avengers might wield. From their point of view, it's a win-win: either the Avengers fall in line, or the last member of a very public, highly embarrassing failed experiment gets tortured into formally requesting his own suicide. Right now, they think they're winning, but if they learn Captain Rogers decided to cut the Gordian knot, I'm not sure what they'll do. You need to fix this.” 

“Yeah, any bright ideas?” Clint snaps defensively, his throat tight. “Because it's not like we just noticed the problem, either.”

Coulson looks weary, now, and disconcertingly vulnerable with the pale line of his throat exposed. “I'm sorry, Clint. We'd like to help but we don't have an angle here. Our hands are tied.” He hesitates, and adds, “I'm the one who recommended Captain Rogers for this position. I really don't want to have to sign his termination.”

“Never gonna happen, sir,” Clint says. Coulson nods, and Clint leaves as he is destroying the recording.

On the way out, he wants to kick himself for being so blind. People in pain are their most honest, right? And Steve was so heartbreakingly confused when they helped him off the post. Steve didn't think they would help him then, and he clearly doesn't expect help now, but Clint will be damned if he's going to let the best leader he's ever had go down without a fight.

They've got two geniuses, Natasha, a god, and Clint's rock-stubbornness on Steve's side. They'll figure something out.

 

**5) Thor**

Steve Rogers fights with them half a dozen times before Thor sees him truly.

The battle has gone ill, to the point where Hawkeye was forced to leave his vantage and rescue a small band of humans. The captain approved the choice but had to summon Thor for aid only a moment later, and Thor is almost too late.

Racing around the corner two blocks away, he sees Rogers pinned against a slab of broken concrete by one of the robots, with his guns and a dozen more robots in pieces at his feet. Mjolnir is flying from Thor's hand before he consciously thinks about it. The hammer hits too low to crush his opponent's head, but the blow staggers it back. Rogers twists like a snake in its hold and kicks up. The head flies off, the machine collapses, and Rogers tosses it away to land among its brethren on the ground. He is already standing by the time Thor reaches him.

“Thanks for the assist,” the captain says absently, wiping sweat from his brow. His hand leaves a smudge on the skin there.

Insulted at the gratitude, for he would not abandon even a false companion in battle, Thor says testily, “You seemed outmatched, Captain.” Rogers glances over sharply, his brow furrowing, and Thor asks more politely, “Am I needed elsewhere?”

“Stark says that's the last of them. And it looks like Hawkeye got all the civilians clear before the explosion.” For a moment, he looks immensely weary, which Thor finds an odd reaction to such news of victory. Thor is reminded once again that as much as he wants to like this man, he cannot trust him, or anyone who willingly serves a military that has proven so corrupt and treacherous.

“We should join the others,” Thor says stiffly.

Rogers nods, his face returning to its usual neutrality as he bends to scoop something off the ground. Turning, he presses the object into Thor's hand, and Thor looks down.

It is Mjolnir.

There is a long, still moment before Thor understands, and then comprehension hits him like a blow. The captain is already striding off towards the team's gathering point by the time Thor recovers from his shock enough to speak. Rogers could not know the import of his act, for Thor has only told the other Avengers about the true nature of the hammer. As far as SHIELD and the Council are aware, it is merely supernaturally heavy and bound to his control.

Very few beings have proven worthy of Mjolnir in the whole of Thor's long life; to find one here, serving the Council, is nearly beyond belief. Thor is still struggling to reconcile the knowledge, and to think how he will tell the team after the debriefing, when Fury announces the whipping. One hundred lashes, for a far lesser offense than they had ever previously earned a punishment. Captain Rogers is the only one who does not look surprised, and Thor recalls how strangely tired he'd seemed, telling Thor of Clint's actions earlier. He had known this was coming.

After that, it takes all the control Thor can summon to walk out without breaking something.

By the time the Administrator leaves, Thor has swallowed his rage enough to return, but it rises again at the sight of the captain's back, the fresh blood over countless scars, and again when Steve flinches from his hands as Thor pulls him off the post. It reminds Thor of his early days with the team, when they would startle away from his touch. Even Tony, who seemed so expansive at first, soon proved to wield his gestures in the same manner he uses words: as a first strike to bring him control. They are all of them more used to violence than care.

Yet Steve also turns into their hands while he sleeps, quiets under a kind touch even at the height of his pain. Bruce calls it _skin hunger_ , and Thor thinks that Steve must be starving.

As Steve heals, Thor realizes that this will not be as simple as it was with the others. For them, trust came from the blood they spilled together, and deepened as they fought the Council on other fronts. But Steve has been a soldier for many years, and has already given them his confidence in battle; the problem lies deeper than that for him. Thor knows that a man who can wield Mjolnir would have given his full heart and strength to all his soldiers, just as he has to the Avengers, but the warriors who came before were not the brothers-in-arms to him that they should have been. Now that Thor is looking, the scars of that are as clear as the ones on his back. Steve does not expect this team to be any different, and that is what Thor must remedy.

On Asgard, battle goes hand in hand with certain celebrations that knit the warrior bond even tighter, and Thor thinks such an event would be a fine start. None of the others are trained in the art of reciting songs and stories of legend, so he begins with a movie night a few days after Tony gifts Steve with his own floor. Thor makes certain that Steve sits in the middle of the couch, bounded in on all sides; the moment that Steve relaxes into the press of legs and arms and smiles quietly himself is the moment that Thor knows he chose well.

Natasha finds him the next morning and tilts her head thoughtfully at him. “You never went to this much trouble with the rest of us.” 

“You had no need for this in the way that he does,” Thor says. “We found each other by a different path.”

She tips her head the other way, and smiles. “Alright. What's next?”

With Natasha's advice, he decides on a contest of skill. Since a traditional tournament would be “too much like their day jobs,” in her words, and Steve is still healing from another whipping, Thor and Natasha select a variety of board games from a local store and the team plays them one by one until late in the night. Thor finds himself surprisingly skilled at a game which, for unknown reasons, is named after his relative Balder. He wins by a huge margin, and it is the first time that he hears Steve laugh.

To his great joy, it is not the last.

* * *

Thor holds onto the memory of that laugh when he goes to Asgard to petition their cause, but tells only the story of Mjolnir, uncertain how to put the rest in words. He ends by saying, “Since that day, he has proved himself a wise leader and the truest of companions. I grow weary of watching my friend bleed at the hands of those who claim his allegiance.” 

His father does not speak when Thor finishes his tale, and Thor cannot read the meaning of his silence. He continues, “I have never approved of the barbaric punishments that the Midgardians use, but that such a man can be subjected to this horror only makes the situation clearer. What if he could not heal, as most of their soldiers cannot? There is no limit in their guidelines for number of strokes. Any punishment could easily become a death sentence in the hands of those willing to abuse their power. You have always taught me that a system where such a grave miscarriage of justice is possible must be corrected, or else discarded.”

At last, his father smiles. “That is a worthy cause, indeed, and in aid of a worthy man. I look forward to meeting your Captain, when we go to Midgard.” 

Thor grins, and the relief is overwhelming. 

Compared to that, the official testimony he gives is almost easy. 

Almost.

* * *

There was little laughter to be had during the long ordeal of the hearing, so at the first team meeting afterward, Thor says, “I have heard there are vessels which can be purchased to go out upon the sea. Where might I procure such a craft?”

“Like a sailboat? Those are pretty expensive, buddy,” Clint replies. “And I don't think any of us know how to sail. Except maybe Natasha.”

“I might have a boat,” Tony says. “Can't remember.”

“You _can't remember_?” Clint says in disbelief.

“Pepper will know. I think it's motorized, which would work. Pepper!” he calls, “do I have a boat?”

“That's really not the point,” Clint mutters as Pepper emerges from the kitchen with Bruce and a mug of tea. She is a graceful lady, but Tony's question has put an exasperated look on her face that would make Thor want to grin, if he did not remember Sif's response in a similar situation all too well. Thor still has much to learn about women, truly, but he has at least learned not repeat his errors.

“Yes, Tony, you own a yacht. With a crew. It's even warm enough that you could go swimming, if you wanted.”

“Oooh. Will you wear a bikini?” Tony waggles his eyebrows comically at Pepper. Clint snorts into his coffee.

“Depends on if you expect me to organize any of this, because if you expect me to do work, then I will dress appropriately.”

“No, no, I have Jarvis, Jarvis can do it.”

“I would be happy to delegate the task to your personal assistant, sir.”

“I have a personal assistant again?” Tony asks, baffled, just as Natasha walks in, accompanied by the Son of Coul.

“His name is Eugene,” Coulson says. “He thinks Jarvis is his boss.”

Clint starts to laugh uncontrollably, curling over the table until he is wheezing. Steve somehow keeps a straight face and reaches over to pat Clint sympathetically on the back, which only sets off another round of snickers.

Thor leans back in his chair with satisfaction. His work here is done, and he is already looking forward to assisting Jane with her sunscreen.

 

**6) Bruce**

Bruce isn't a medical doctor – despite what everyone seems to think – but he's the closest that most members of this team will tolerate. It's immediately clear after the first whipping that Steve doesn't expect his help, though – is actively _surprised_ by it. Bruce doesn't know how a guy can serve for twenty years and still be wary about even asking for food when he's hungry, but when Steve's first instinct is to lay out exactly how the team's basic human decency toward him is going to be exploited by the Council, Bruce starts to pay attention. You don't learn that kind of thinking in a vacuum.

At Bruce's request, Tony gets him Steve's complete medical records – though he hands it over with a grimace and a not-entirely-joking, “Got a big bag of weed handy? Because you're gonna need it.” 

Duly warned, Bruce takes a sedative, and still hulks out halfway through the read. It's informative, though, and after the second whipping, when Steve wakes up much faster than he had before, Bruce sits down with Jarvis's scanning and 3D imaging programs to take a hard look at Steve's data. He isn't surprised they'd missed it before – by normal standards, Steve was in peak fitness, well within the healthy BMI range for his size – until Bruce considered the biology. 

Going by Jarvis's data, Steve's weight takes a sizeable dip every time he's injured, and Bruce thinks he knows why. The serum preferentially encourages muscle mass and speeds up metabolism, plus the accelerated healing process uses up resources at a much faster rate than regular humans, which means that Steve has the physique of an Olympic athlete and the fat reserves of an anorexic teenager. Normally Steve is fine because he eats constantly, but when he's unconscious while bleeding and trying to rebuild most of the surface of his back, things get dicey. When his body's natural supply of sugars and fats gets too low, the serum's healing process slows – but not enough. Eventually, his body starts breaking down muscle: a classic starvation response, only in fast forward. It couldn't have been this bad when Steve started out, but the years of abuse have clearly taken their toll.

Bruce spent a long time on the run. He knows about survival, and what it costs. He just didn't realize that's what Steve has been doing.

Left to his own devices, Bruce usually forgets to eat, but now he dredges up high-protein, high-carb recipes that he memorized during his travels: hamburger stew, paella, curry, stroganoff, potato pakoras, carnitas. Steve eats at odd hours so Bruce leaves the leftovers in the fridge and gets Jarvis to play guard dog against any other hungry teammates. He brings snacks when they watch movies, leaves bowls of candy next to Steve at game night, and makes sure Jarvis always stocks up on Steve's preferred foods.

Bruce can't watch Steve's back when they're fighting, but he can do this.

Natasha catches on, of course, and shows up to the next debriefing with a huge bag of trail mix. Bruce isn't sure how she pulled that off in the middle of SHIELD headquarters, but Steve absently eats the whole thing while the others are talking, so he decides to take the win. 

It's still not enough when Steve gets two hundred strokes with a bullwhip. They have to take Steve to medical, and he's still unconscious for a full day. Bruce does his best to hold onto control while they fix him up, but when the doctors say they have done all they can and all that's left to do is wait and see if Steve keeps breathing, he hulks out in the middle of the common room.

What's left after his anger is defeat. He keeps up the quiet food campaign, but it's a stopgap at best. Even Hulk gets oddly subdued, inside his head and in the field, and he's not alone. It's a bad time.

They get through that – even manage to hamstring the Council for a while – but it's not long before Bruce gets sold out to the AGD. Someone's getting revenge.

Too bad it backfires so spectacularly. 

The Army won't be doing research at that site for a long time, if they can ever rebuild the facility at all. Bruce sees Tony deliberately dumping some pretty nasty chemicals over the ruins and suddenly, viscerally understands the old ritual of salting the earth. The whipping is bad as can be, but it's been long enough since the caning that Steve's body can handle it, and he is blazingly unrepentant.

In the days after, though, Steve practically disappears.

Steve _is_ still showing up to sparring and team practice and the gym, but Bruce can't exactly jump in on those activities, which is why he notices first. It used to make him feel isolated from the team in the early days, but Steve changed a lot of things when he came. So when Steve's suddenly not sketching in the common area, or reading in the library nook they set up at Tony's protest for those of them who still believe in paper, or making coffee that doesn't work for him because he likes the smell, Bruce knows there's a problem. 

Bruce doesn't want to track down Steve in his quarters, which feels too invasive, but Steve has to be eating sometime, so Bruce cheats and asks Jarvis to tell him when Steve shows up in the kitchen. They're old conspirators at this point, after all.

The next afternoon, Jarvis drops a dime, and Bruce darts up to the kitchen. Steve is still there, making one of his elaborate, meticulous fourteen-layer sandwiches. He nods at Bruce when he enters but doesn't strike up a conversation, so it's left to Bruce.

“Don't you ever get sick of sandwiches, Steve?” he asks, filling the kettle. Thanks to Jarvis, he knows that Steve eats them almost exclusively, unless someone else has cooked; he never eats prepackaged food if he can help it. Too many years of MREs, maybe.

To his surprise, Steve says, “Sometimes. I don't really know how to cook. Except soup, but I--” He looks down and away. “It's not really soup weather right now.”

Since it's August in New York, he's not wrong, but by now Bruce recognizes that gesture as Steve avoiding a bad memory. Bruce doesn't call him on it, just says, “Yeah, I didn't learn how to cook until college. I got a job at this pizza place in town – they had the best marinara in the state.” Stan had taught him the secret as a graduation present, saying it was a family recipe and Bruce needed to know it. The memory still makes him smile.

He looks over at Steve, still hunched in on himself. His hands are very still on the countertop, and for some reason Bruce flashes on an image of Steve pulling him out of the AGD base. Bruce was pretty out of it when the team found him, but he suddenly remembers Steve ripping his manacles clean off the table, his hands trembling as he pulled out the IVs. 

Oh. No wonder he's been so quiet. 

Steve's hands don't shake when he's shooting at monsters or fighting aliens, but just being in that base had scared him badly. Bruce is pretty sure it has everything to do with the way Steve barely makes a sound when he's being whipped, until he screams. Or how long it had taken before Steve stopped looking surprised when they helped him off the post.

At least when Bruce had been there, he'd known someone was coming for him.

He finds himself saying, “I could teach you, if you want. How to make marinara, I mean.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, looking up. “I'd like that.”

Bruce nods solemnly. “I have to swear you to secrecy, though. It's for family only.”

Steve's answering smile is the best thing Bruce has seen in weeks.

* * *

Bruce spritzes the last of the counteragent on Steve's shoulder, waits thirty seconds, then wipes away the dissolved remains of the alien cat-thing's drool from where it had tried to bite Steve. The teeth hadn't broken skin, thanks to one of Clint's well-timed arrows, but its saliva had crystallized around the joint so badly that Steve couldn't even move his arm.

There's an irritated red rash on the skin that fades as Bruce watches – Steve is healing even faster than usual these days. Bruce gets a pleased thrill out of it every time. “All set, Cap,” he says, patting Steve on the arm.

As Steve turns to pull on his shirt, Bruce automatically glances at his back. It's been a few months since the flaying, but the scars are – 

“Whoa, hold on,” he says, reaching out to halt Steve's motions.

“What is it?” Steve does a very good job of controlling his voice, but he tenses under Bruce's hand.

“Nothing bad,” Bruce assures him, and Steve instantly relaxes. It still hurts that Steve clearly expects the worst in a medical situation every time, but at least he trusts Bruce enough to believe his word, now. Bruce turns Steve into the light a little more and says, “Just-- I think your scars are fading.”

“From getting captured?” Steve asks, craning his neck. “Isn't that normal?”

“Yeah, that'd be normal, but...I think it's _all_ of them. Jarvis, can you put up a comparison?”

“Of course. With your permission, Captain,” Jarvis says, and Bruce winces at himself for forgetting to ask. He's been spending too much time with Tony. And _still isn't a medical doctor_ , dammit.

“What?” Steve says. “Oh. Yeah, of course. Go ahead.”

Obediently, Jarvis displays three photos in the air: the current one, one from a year ago, and one dated from Steve's earliest time with the team. Bruce forgets, sometimes, how stretched-thin Steve looked back then. 

He blinks, and focuses on the scarring. It's tough to tell, even side-by-side like this, because of the appalling, messy sprawl of the damage. “Jarvis, overlay the images?” The pictures shift, highlighting the relevant areas in different colors and lining them up. Even with all the additional trauma from the past few years, it's suddenly clear that the scars are fading. A few outliers have even disappeared completely, including some very old scars that Bruce had thought Steve was stuck with, since he'd been carrying them for years.

“Look at that,” he laughs, pleased.

“I didn't even think that was possible at this point,” Steve says, and Bruce looks over sharply at the odd tone in his voice. Steve doesn't look upset, though, just sort of stunned.

“Maybe the flaying set off some kind of advanced healing process we didn't know about,” Bruce offers.

Steve smiles suddenly. “And I'm a lot healthier than I used to be.” He looks at Bruce sidelong. “Eating better, for one.”

Bruce grins back, somewhat rueful. “And there's that.”

Steve returns to staring at the photos, but his voice is warm when he says, “I'm thinking tacos for dinner tonight. What do you say?”

“You're chopping the jalepeños this time,” Bruce warns, but Steve just laughs.

“I can live with that,” he says, and if he sounds unduly delighted, Bruce isn't going to say anything.

 

**+1) Natasha**

Steve is, objectively, gorgeous. 

This is not news to Natasha, but her reaction to it is. Normally, she finds it very hard to find anyone attractive. She recognizes attractiveness as a quality in the people she meets, of course, but evaluates threat level first. Coulson had once described her technique as 'observe everything, admire nothing,' which sounded right to her. Assessing the physical side is easy and almost instinctive by now – distribution of strength and mass, probable methods of attack, weaknesses she can exploit – but aesthetics are a more subtle evaluation. Can she use their ego or self-confidence against them? Can she manipulate their insecurities? Will they expect a seduction, or be flattered by it?

Steve had been curiously blank to her, in that regard. His Vitruvian Man physical perfection suggested no weaknesses except an above-average height, and his hand-to-hand skills were nearly as varied as her own. His motives were unknown. He was beautiful, but seemed unconscious of it. And unlike Clint, who sweated and worked for the endurance to draw a bow for hours in combat, or Tony, who earned his strength with hard mechanical labor, Steve's muscles came from a test tube, with no cost that she could see.

Too late, she'd realized that the price is written all over his back.

Natasha is not in the habit of indulging regret, but she still feels it years later for her role in that bad start. They all do. Not that they talk about it, of course. Instead, the team likes giving Steve things, because he came to them with so little and expects even less. Thor brings him a dagger from Nedavellir after the Asgardian summit. Pepper gives him an original bronze casting of Rodin's _La Cariatide tombée portant sa pierre_ on his two-year anniversary with the team. Bruce finds an apron with MAKE TACOS NOT WAR printed on it that Steve wears constantly, for reasons Natasha has not yet discovered. And Clint and Natasha give him twenty years worth of revenge – though he still doesn't actually know about that.

Tony tops them all when he reverse-engineers some wreckage from the latest alien invasion and makes Steve a wrist-worn gadget that generates an energy shield. It's discus-shaped, impenetrable as far as Tony can test, and can even be thrown for short distances – meaning less than a mile; this is _Tony's_ idea of short distances, after all. Although the shield is naturally transparent, Tony also includes a joke setting that turns it red, white and blue. The joke's on him when Steve starts using the colored version regularly, claiming that it helps the team coordinate when fighting. He only uses the stealth version when absolutely necessary, though, so Natasha thinks he just likes it better that way.

Steve loves the shield instantly and completely, but the rest of the team is close behind. The shield is both a weapon and a defense: it's perfect. Steve has an alarming tendency to take hits in the pursuit of a swift victory for the rest of them, knowing that he'll heal – but they have all seen Steve bleed enough to last a lifetime, and Tony can only upgrade his body armor so far without sacrificing mobility. 

After a few weeks of working out the shield's technical kinks with Tony, Steve starts sparring as often as he can with anyone who will agree. Natasha volunteers herself a lot more often than she should, because Steve inventing an entirely new style of combat is the hottest thing she's ever seen. She should be sick of watching Steve fight by now, but the way he moves is tangled up somehow with the way he watches out for them all, the constancy of his compassion, and his strength that goes well beyond the physical. With the shield drawing him away from his military training, she starts to see the playfulness in his movements – a part of himself that he used to keep well hidden, close to his heart.

When they spar, though, she still knows which way he'll move half the time – although dodging the shield is a fun new challenge – and eventually she pins him, her hand resting lightly on his throat. Steve knows that she knows seven ways to incapacitate someone in this position, and he relaxes between her thighs, surrendering.

He is laughing as he lies there, open and delighted, and she almost backs away because she hasn't thought this through, hasn't considered all the angles– 

–but then she realizes: this is Steve. There are no angles. There are no lies. She has nothing to fear.

So she kisses him.

His body stills beneath her, but he kisses back without hesitation. Sometimes Natasha thinks he doesn't know any other way to act. His hands come up to rest on her thigh and the small of her back, and she lets her palm slide up his throat to the strong line of his jaw, her fingers stroking the vulnerable skin there. Steve's mouth opens a little and she teases her tongue past the edge of his lips, then pulls back. His cheeks are flushed, which wasn't the sparring because he can go for hours without even breaking a sweat, and his eyes have fallen shut. It takes a gratifyingly long moment for him to blink them open again. 

Natasha lets the silence stretch until he speaks first.

“So,” he says, his voice deeper than usual, “we should do that again sometime.”

“You free tonight?” Natasha leans back in a little, and enjoys the way his eyes drop to her mouth, and lower, before meeting her gaze again.

“I am now. My floor?”

“If I pick the movie.” Steve nods his agreement, and she swings herself up and off him with more of a showy twist than is really necessary. She knows he looks at her when he thinks she isn't watching, but now she can watch him watch her, all in the open. It's a better feedback loop than she could have hoped for, anticipation rising like mercury between them, fluid and bright.

That night, she picks _Holiday_ from Jarvis's archives – the 1938 version with Katharine Hepburn, of course, because Steve likes old-fashioned as much as he admires steel spines and redheads, and Natasha thinks Cary Grant is fascinating. He was a man with true control over his body language, a skill that she finds lacking – and distracting – in most actors.

Regardless, it's a good thing they've both seen the movie before, because they move on to making out before the opening titles roll.

The clumsy way Steve kisses at first, and his sharp learning curve after, only confirm something she's long suspected: an absence in his printed history that might have been just an omission, until she lines it up with his age when he entered the SES program and the circumstances ever since, his odd romantic streak, and the way he never talks about his childhood.

They have that last part in common, so it seems oddly right that together they can make out on the couch like the kids they never were. Natasha revels in it: she has kissed so many people, but never like this. She can forget about mission goals and cover stories; she doesn't have to watch her surroundings with one eye and her one-night stand with the other. Instead, she can just focus on the way Steve sounds when she nips at his jaw, the precise pattern of calluses on his hands as they stroke over her skin, the feeling of his laughter when they are pressed chest to chest.

In turn, he is careful when he touches her – not because Natasha is fragile, but because people have not always been careful when they touched him. She isn't shy about letting him know what she likes – and, less frequently, what she doesn't – until he stops being careful and starts being confident. 

It takes a few weeks of pretending to watch Katharine Hepburn movies, but finally, one night when they are both shirtless and Steve is mouthing at Natasha's breasts as she grinds down on him, she asks, low in his ear, “Wanna move this party to a bed?”

Steve actually hesitates, breathing raggedly against the notch of her collarbone. “I've...never done that before,” he says, his face still turned down and away.

Natasha strokes the back of his neck, rests her cheek against the fine hair at his temple. “I know,” she says. She guessed, anyway. Close enough.

“Oh,” Steve says. To his credit, he sounds more relieved than embarrassed that she knows his secret – which is good, because she knows a lot more of them. “Well. If you're sure...?”

Natasha watches the tips of his ears go pink at the awkwardness of the question, and bends down to drag one of his earlobes into her mouth with her teeth. He makes the low breathy sound that she loves, so she does it again.

Pulling back and pressing her cheek against his, she whispers, “You're a fast learner. I'll risk it,” and drags him into the bedroom.

He hesitates again when he's lying flat on his back, Natasha crouched over him, both of them naked. He's glorious like this: it's not the first time she's seen this much skin, but he's flushed pink and sheened with sweat and smiling up at her like she's a miracle. She's seen him smiling at the team like that sometimes, but this one is just for her. 

“I don't have a condom,” he admits, like not being completely on top of his supply situation was a cardinal sin.

“And normally that'd be a problem, but you're immune to infection, and pregnancy is...not a concern for me,” Natasha tells him. The pang is so old it barely twinges now. Steve sees something in her face anyway and strokes a hand over her hair, cupping her cheek, his face open and sympathetic.

That's not the mood Natasha wants for this evening, so she kneels up and slides down over him and – _god_ , yes. He's thick and hot – more than normal, score another one for super serum – and curved in all the right places. She rolls her hips a few times and Steve jackknifes up to kiss her, like he couldn't bear to be so far away. Spreading her thighs to adjust, she takes him deeper, and he moans into the curve of her neck, his hands flexing on her ass, pulling her down.

She doesn't have to do much after that. Strength has never been a turn-on for her, but control _is_ , and despite the power of Steve's hands on her hips, she won't have a single bruise tomorrow. Natasha closes her eyes as warmth builds between her legs, sparking higher with each thrust. Steve's hands won't settle, stroking up her back, kneading at her ass, cupping her breasts and thumbing at the nipples. He's thrusting up into her, harder and harder as he loses his fear of hurting her – and then suddenly goes still, and Natasha can feel him coming inside her, hot and liquid and raw. She clenches down and he makes that noise again, burying his face in her breasts.

As Steve starts to soften, he collapses backwards, still staring up at Natasha. The look on his face is....

Natasha rolls off and lies on her back next to him, catching her breath. Steve immediately curls into her side, his arm coming over to smooth a long line down her side from breast to thigh, and back again. She is aching and horny, but waits, because patience has paid off so far. Eventually, his hand slides inward again, catching at her nipples, brushing low over her belly, and then dipping between her legs. His fingers don't quite know what they're doing, but he's curious and strong and she trusts him to stay with her. She trusts him.

She doesn't need anything complicated at this point, just directs him how to curl his fingers and guides him to her clit. God, she really likes his calluses. The steady rhythm brings her higher, closer, curving into his hands and cursing in Russian between endearments that she distantly hopes he can't translate, until he bends his head to suck hard on her nipple and her orgasm surges in like the sea.

He's still moving his fingers gently when she comes down, clearly not sure if he should stop. When she turns her head to kiss him, he pulls out and cups his hand over her mons, leaning into the kiss and doing filthy things with his tongue that she taught him. Lazily, his thumb strokes down and back up, circling around her clit. She shudders, arching up into the aftershock – and finds a familiar pressure against her thigh.

She breaks the kiss and looks down in surprise: Steve is hard again. He's making a hilariously bashful expression when she looks up, and says, “Sorry, I-”

“Wanna go again?” she interrupts, because _really_.

“Can I?” he asks, lighting up.

“ _Hell_ yes,” she laughs, and pulls him back down to meet her.


End file.
